


Unexpected Experimental Results

by Ook



Series: Hello, Westchester. Hello. [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is perfectly Human, Cecil is Mostly Human, Established Relationship, Harming Carlos is not good for your health., Hurt/Comfort, Kernezelda is a goddess of beta-ing, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Pets are good for your health, Rescue, Scientists who are not Carlos are mean and wrong, So very not good. So very very not good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:01:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ook/pseuds/Ook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cecil broadcasts his concerns over his beautiful Carlo's absence. He's not abandoning his love and his new home town for the delights of Science and other scientists, is he? Surely not.</p><p>As it turns out, Carlos' absence is neither voluntary nor fun.</p><p>Cecil's reaction to discovering this is also not fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Listeners. O, Listeners. I come to you now bearing sad, potentially even grave news. For the past three days, I have not seen or heard from Carlos. Perfect Carlos. Beautiful Carlos. _My_ … Hm. Boyfriend isn't a term I like - too middle school. Partner… that’s way too dry and businesslike to describe my feelings for Carlos - Carlos and his myriad perfections. *sigh* I certainly can't call Carlos – dare I say it? Though it is true and so, so beautiful – my _lover_. Not if there are more than two people within earshot. (Thanks to the diligent members of the Sheriff's Secret Police, there are _always_ more than two people within earshot.) 

“Significant Other is right out, too. Carlos is Significant, of course, not only to me, but to the whole of Night Vale. After all, the Apache Tracker, that appalling racist jerk, heroically saved Carlos’ life from the murderous warriors of the tiny underground city at the expense of his own. In turn, Carlos discovered the means – through his brilliant Science – to repel those miniature invaders forever, thus saving the citizens and perhaps even the town of Night Vale from war and possible doom! So, Significant, yes, but hardly Other. Not in Night Vale. No, even after eighteen months in Night Vale Carlos is still both perfect and perfectly human. Which is just as well. The paperwork for registering oneself as Other can be a real _nightmare._

“So, my friends, my listeners, and any attentive members of the Sheriff’s Secret Police, I have said nothing whatsoever beyond the sad statement that Carlos, that perfectly-coifed and strong-jawed Scientist, _my_ Carlos, has gone missing.”

“Now, folks, I understand that trust and space are very important in relationships, and that in these three, sad days there have been no mass killings, no new reports from Intern Dana in the dog park, no sudden bouts of deadly ennui or even food poisoning, but still. I worry. The last time I visited the station’s men’s room, a thought struck me as I petted Khoshekh.

“‘Perhaps,’ I mused to the floating cat, scratching carefully around his ears. ‘Carlos went to visit his fellow Scientists?’

“A week ago, as you may remember that I announced in Sunday’s local events calendar, a tribe of travelling scientists - not quite Carlos' own people, he said when interviewed, but close enough - encamped outside the town, in the sand wastes. You could see their shiny white pre-fab houses and tents from a long way off. Possibly they were attracted by the imaginary corn grown by John Peters - you know, the farmer? It attracts quite a few beings, after all. Or maybe they'd come to see the forest. And it's easy in the Wastes, where time flows differently along certain courses, to get confused about how long anything is taking you.

“‘He'll be back before he knows he's gone,’ I bravely told Khoshekh, whom, upon meeting Carlos several months ago, purred fondly and batted him with sheathed claws, giddy as a kitten. Like many of you, listeners, save for those converted by exposure to our beloved Khoshekh and his forever-homed kittens, I’m not a cat person, but I could tell from the sound he made - a noise like an electric fan discovering treacle – that my furry, floating companion agreed.

“‘Still, I’m… concerned,’ I said to Khoshekh, nervously re-arranging his food and water. ‘I could... I could drop by. Welcome our new scientist visitors and see if... if Carlos wants to come ho-- come back to Night Vale yet.’ Folks, Khoshekh spun twice in the air, as excited as I’ve ever seen him. My nerve thus bolstered at this sign of encouragement, I nodded decisively, washed my hands once more, and turned to leave.

“At the door, I looked back to say good-bye, and listeners, you will not believe what happened next. Khoshekh was floating at my side! His tail curled neatly round his legs; his eyes were inscrutable. And from the basin rose harsh creaking, as of mighty forces invisibly applied to porcelain and plumbing.

“‘Ah,’ I said, with the calmness of one who has fought victoriously against tiny invading soldiers. ‘Are you coming along too?’ Khoshekh glowed slightly. I held the door open. Serenely, Khoshekh floated through the air alongside me and at long last, exited the men's room.

“Listeners, I-We go now to seek our town’s - _my_ beloved, beautiful scientist, Carlos. If all goes well, this will not be the last time you hear me say – good-night, Night Vale. Good-night.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What has Carlos been up to these last three days?
> 
> Nothing fun.
> 
> What is Cecil going to do when he finds out?
> 
> Nothing fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Carlos POV chapter, so Cecil is not narrating. I'm sorry, dear readers.

Carlos knows exactly what the time is. Not Night Vale time, but outsider time. A talking clock – neither invisible nor sentient, just one with pre-recorded announcements - outside his cell-tent door has just sounded seven PM precisely. Carlos sighs, tries to breathe steadily around the pain in his ribs, and thinks of Cecil. The air conditioning is so powerful in here, he ponders dreamily, that he'd love to try and steal one of Cecil's sweater vests.

He drove out three days ago to meet/investigate the scientists - and find out for which discreet but vaguely corrupt company they were working. He did it in a spirit of friendship and concern for both Night Vale and those caught up in Night Vale's proximity. 

Possibly, Carlos remembers with a slight, pained huff at his own naiveté, he had also hoped to talk to people who had, like himself, studied the laws of physics in a place where they were not routinely violated and/or ignored (for the greater good). 

It certainly hadn’t _only_ been to see if their eyes displayed the same funny twitch that had developed in his own left eye soon after entering Night Vale. To be fair, it _had_ faded once he started listening to Cecil. The man had a very soothing voice.

But although these observing scientists had been too wary - too fearful - to actually get too close to the town, they had seized upon the presence of somebody _from_ the town with a disturbing degree of interest. Also, with a disturbing number of hypodermic syringes. 

Some time later, Carlos blinked awake to already find himself the subject of their first experiment. Which was just plain rude. He'd tried offering co-operation, tried asking for the hypothesis they were exploring; he'd even, when they brought the scalpels out, tried telling them he'd only lived in Night Vale for under two years.

They hadn't stopped.

In fact, one of them had looked up and simply said, in a flat, bored voice: “That's why you're useful,” before proceeding to cut a ten millimetre square of skin from his left thigh.

Useful. Carlos wouldn't hesitate to apply that word to some things about himself. But never to Night Vale. Night Vale is amazing, puzzling, exasperating and full of soul-shattering terror and awe. But it's not _useful._

Although it can be, to use one of Cecil's favourite words, pretty, well, neat.

After that, they hadn't talked to him again.

These scientists do not belong in Night Vale. Carlos can tell because of the things that are missing. Eldritch terrors. Clinging patches of insanity. Clinging patches of sentient mold, smelling of licorice and antique lace. The carnivorous spider plants (whose bites leave blue-green fish-shaped scars) that rapidly attempt entry to any vehicle or temporary shelter in the sand wastes have failed to infiltrate the cell-tent. Not only that, but all the angles of all the walls meet neatly, and even if the walls do billow and swell, it's only because many of them are canvas.

Carlos tried to contact the Sheriff’s Secret police, reporting what was going on to the plug hole of the portable sink in his cell, and also (when he’d been carried from the pre-fab surgical hut to his current location) to the night sky, as recommended. Nothing has happened, so Carlos thinks they must not be aware of these events just yet.

These people use many procedures to investigate things - and Carlos - but they are all dull, scientific gestures, attempts at making the messy, mystic miracles they encounter into mundane and manipulatable facts. They don't _deserve_ Night Vale's gifts - insanity and beauty and wonder and bowel-clenching fear.

Carlos wants to get out, get away, get back to Night Vale, where things are not safe, but in ways he is slowly coming to understand. He wants to go home. He wants Cecil.

He wants them to stop _hurting him_ in the name of scientific discovery and future profits.

While wishing has so far proven ineffective, Carlos has been able to semi-successfully distract himself from the various aches in his limbs and torso, from the metallic scent of drying blood and the sharper bite of hastily splashed rubbing alcohol on badly-bandaged wounds.

Eyes closed, he again tries to catalog the molecular make-up of the non-existent house in the Desert Creek development, a continuing Night Vale mystery. His own team is doubtless still trying to bribe passing citizens into going inside. Just to see if they can, especially after what happened with the doorbell-ringing incident. 

He’s reached the stage of comparing the make-up of the invisible but existing clock tower to the make-up of the visible but non-existent house when a noise starts up next to his left ear, like an oiled chainsaw attempting to sweet talk something wetly organic.

Carlos opens his eyes, tries to roll over and gasps in pain when his restraints bite. The blotches gradually clear from his vision, but by then, he has begun to hallucinate. Khoshekh, the station cat, hovers a foot away from the sharply sloped ceiling of his cell-tent.

“Hello.” Carlos says politely. Illusory Koshekh flicks his tail and makes no further sound. “I'd pet you, obviously, but...” Carlos trails off, pulling at his bonds in demonstration.

Koshekh descends to sit on, or just above, Carlos' head. He curls around the sad stubbled expanse of Carlos' scalp. Carlos feels he disapproves of the change. Just as well Cecil isn't here. It might break his heart.

He says, a little weakly, to the hallucination, “I - the shaving wasn't my choice.” And then tenses. He can hear a voice. It's hopefully only in his own head, because it's Cecil, and Carlos wants Cecil to be safely back in Night Vale, getting ready for another broadcast, not here.

“I'm sure it's all very fascinating. But I'm afraid I must, I really must insist on seeing Carlos - my own sweet, perfect Carlos, not some poor copy or photograph.” A faint edge of menace enters Cecil's voice. “Now.”

“Cecil!” Carlos calls loudly, his voice cracking. Outside, a gun safety clicks off.

Hopelessly, he shouts. “Run!” He's not sure whether this is happening or not, but he'd better warn Cecil anyway, just in case he actually exists and is here. The tent wall opens with a sound or tearing canvas. Cecil sticks his head in.

 

“Carlos!” Cecil carols joyfully, but the joy runs out of his voice and his face when he sees his own dear sweet scientist tied to a bed and bruised in non-consensually enjoyable ways.

“Hi.” Carlos says, weakly. “I hope you're really here,” he adds as Cecil glances over his shoulder and enters the tent in quick, light steps.

“Of course I am.” Cecil murmurs, distracted, as he unfastens Carlos' restraints. “I'm always really here, wherever here is.”

As soon as Carlos can sit up he throws his arms around Cecil and hides his face in Cecil's sweater vest. Koshekh oozes from Carlos' head to his shoulder.

“Oh. Oh my.” Cecil freezes in horror. “Carlos - your _hair!_.”

“I know. Not my choice.” Carlos mutters into the sweater while Cecil runs adoring and dismayed fingers over his scalp, moaning in most sincere grief.

Carlos tries to stand up. He can't.

“You have to get out of here,” he tells Cecil and his floating cat. His head hurts, and the blotches in his vision have returned with friends.

“That really is a very immodest outfit they put you in,” Cecil says. “You just stay here, I'll bring back a, a jacket or something for you.” He walks to the hole in the wall of the tent. “I'll be back in two shakes of a tail!” He does not say what kind of creature’s tail. Carlos wonders about this, briefly.

Outside, someone starts shouting. A gun fires. Shadows – wavering and inhuman - move violently against the tent walls. A scream tears through the air, cuts off abruptly as if severed by a knife. Carlos tries to stand again, bandaged hands grasping for support. Koshekh wraps himself lovingly over Carlos' face and head. 

Carlos tries to suck in air, and finds it harder than he can really cope with. He sags back onto the bed. Several heavy thuds shake the ground – the first actual semblance of seismic activity he has witnessed in Night Vale, despite the constant disaster-level readings. Thoughts – and vision - whirling, Carlos passes out to the quite disturbing sound of retching and sobbing and Koshekh’s rusty purring. It’s actually all quite soothing.

 

He wakes up in his own bed, Cecil hovering - metaphorically only - beside him anxiously.

“Hi.” Carlos mumbles, and discovers that Cecil is holding his good hand when his grip on it squeezes tighter. “Thank you for rescuing me,” he adds, and really, Cecil blushes adorably.

“Oh, I just had to correct a misunderstanding or two,” says the Voice of Night Vale, awkwardly. “All straightened out now, and hey, you were _saying_ you were running out of mysterious humming scientific equipment!”

“So I was.”

“Well, John Peters, you know--”

“The farmer?” Cecil nods.

“He's going to haul a load of it into town for us.” Cecil sounds happy.

“That's really--”

“Neat.” Cecil says, brightly, and Carlos knows he should be asking how Cecil got rid of the scientists, how he even knew Carlos was in trouble, but, he's tired and still in a little pain, although--

“My hair's grown back!”

“Well., of course.” Cecil squeezes Carlos’ hand in both of his. “I asked for everything when I got you that tattoo of restoration; and with your hair--” he breaks off and breathes, for a moment. “It _had_ to grow back.”

“Amazing Night Vale,” Carlos murmurs. “Heroic Cecil and Koshekh. My rescuers.”

“I - I hardly think I'm heroic.” Cecil demurs, blushing pinkly, and Carlos laughs a little.

“Just as long as you're mine.” he says, and Cecil swoops in to kiss him thoroughly.

“That's the perfect word for you, Carlos!”

Carlos frowns, confused.

“I was thinking about it the other day,” Cecil explains. “And really, ‘mine’ is the best. Better than Partner, or, or boyfriend, or...”

Carlos silences the Voice of Night Vale with all of his scientific acumen, applying mouth to mouth contact to achieve that most desirable result: in layman’s terms – Carlos reaches up, drags Cecil close, and replaces his words with kisses.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil's next broadcast: an excerpt.

You know who you are. And so do we. And so do they. Keep smiling brightly and-

 

"Welcome to Night Vale

 

Listeners who are listening may be relieved to know that Carlos, our - my perfect scientist - has opened his eyes again. No, he has done more than that; he has even spoken and - well. This is a public show. But be assured; our dear Scientist is - as ever - perfect, and perfectly himself once more.

In other news, a severe depression suddenly appeared in the west corner of the parking lot. It appears unstable and may become manic with very little warning; community members are urged to consider offerings of medication, yoga and understanding, but for obvious reasons, no meditation.

John Peters - you know, the farmer? - has announced a grand sale of well washed visible tents and camper vans. This will be followed by a sale of freshly cleaned scientific goods once the Sheriff’s secret police clear them for use and distribution, and Carlos has made his own selection for future need.

I tell you, these past few days have been very difficult, for both of us, waiting for Carlos’ new tattoo to take. I appreciate all of your support and good wishes. They will be used sensibly. I do not apologize for the broadcast I made from beside his bed; Carlos said nothing forbidden, in his ramblings, and we in Night Vale are used to feverish ramblings, are we not?

Besides, Khoshekh - who has been showing a very affectionate streak, lately - seemed disinclined to move away from the door. It’s so sweet when pets get concerned, isn’t it? Many thanks to intern Hank, who handed me the broadcast equipment in through the window. I’m sure that limb will grow back just fine, Hank. 

Khoshekh himself has now returned to the men’s room, but I can tell by the light in his eyes and the tone of his purr that he is happier for his excursions to Carlos in his extremity. Carlos, my dear, sweet, invalid Carlos, appreciates his attention too, I am sure. We do not know if our station pet’s rambles will occur again, so I implore you to be friendly and welcoming, if you see him out and about.

I must also say thank you to our own kind, caring, dedicated Sheriff’s Secret Police, who diligently allowed these invaders of bad science to think they were undetected and would get away with it; which we and they both know they did not. Thank your individual police person today by shouting frenziedly from your back porch later this evening. 

The discreet but vaguely corrupt company funding these scientists released a statement, in the form of ink printed on paper, that swears the board of the company and the CEO in particular “knew nothing about this particular project, and would never have authorized it, oh god, oh god please make it _stop looking at me like that!_ ” a statement with which I feel sure we can all concur.

The PTA has been discussing the viability of a literacy and numeracy outreach programme for our tarantula community. Funding appears to be the sticking point; a fundraising drive of car washes, sponsored chanting and door to door sales of scouts is being considered. Please write in - to the PTA, of course! - with any of your own ideas. For fundraising. Not anything else. 

And now, the weather: (Frank Turner’s Photosynthesis)

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this. I wasn't happy with it. And then Kernezelda, in her infinite wisdom and compassion did alter the first section so Cecil spoke to us directly, and, well, improved it until it was almost- almost! better than a slice of pizza from Big Rico's. 
> 
> Only almost, though. Because no one does a slice like Big Rico's. No one.


End file.
